Skylights are well known and commonly used mechanisms increasing the lighting within buildings. A skylight includes a light tunnel connecting the interior of a building to the exterior, and some mechanism to control and/or direct sun light through the light tunnel to the interior. Controlling direct sun light through the light tunnel often comes from a need to either maximize or minimize the intensity of direct sun light in the interior.
As used herein a mechanism directing sun light with respect to a light tunnel to either minimize or maximize the direct sun light in the interior will be referred to as an attenuating mechanism.
There are some problems with existing skylight attenuating mechanisms. These mechanisms tend to degrade or eliminate a clear view of the sky. One well-known way to minimize direct sun light is to use translucent film as a direct light barrier. Such a barrier also removes any clarity in seeing the sky itself. Such mechanisms do not allow people the pleasure of directly viewing the sky.
Other attenuating mechanisms tend to require complex tracking systems, lest they become very inefficient. The inventor has discovered that tendency toward inefficiency is due in part to the use of one sided reflective panels. These one sided reflective panels must be directly aligned to the sun to have their desired effect.
An example of the prior art is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,824 entitled “Rotatably Mounted Skylight having Reflectors” by Webster, et. al. The '824 invention requires two tracking systems, one for the housing and one for the panel of reflectors. Additionally, depending on the angle of the reflective panels with respect to the sun, there may be little or no view of the sky, because the reflective panels essentially block the view in maximizing the directed sun light as in FIG. 6 of the '824 patent.